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Pressure to Have a Fantasy Wedding Can Ruin Your Marriage

Former Archbishop of Canterbury says marketing push to turn weddings into an ‘experience’is draining marriage of meaning.

Getting married, he said, had become an “experience” to be marketed, rather than simply a public declaration of commitment

The growing pressure on couples to have a “perfect” wedding has become one of the biggest threats to marriage itself, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Williams, has warned.

It has turned weddings into “massively fantastical” events, which leave the day-to-day reality of married life looking decidedly dull by comparison.

The former Archbishop, who married the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, warned that the obsession with glitzy, celebrity-style weddings is a symptom of the “short-term, unimaginative, emotionally unintelligent”, culture of modern Britain.

He said that despite rapid social changes, including the growth of cohabitation, marriage is still highly valued as the ultimate “public affirmation of commitment”.

Among a list of threats, he said society must address what he called the “marketisation of marriage”.

Emily Brand, a partner at Winckworth Sherwood, said: “The outside pressures and influences that couples face are greater than ever and it is at times difficult for them to take a step back and look at what the values of a marriage should be, that help make it successful.”